


Alligator Turtles

by GoblinCatKC



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Dark, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 19:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21287072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoblinCatKC/pseuds/GoblinCatKC
Summary: April has been rescued from Baxter's terrible mousers by three friendly turtles under the sewers. But who will save her from the fourth brother? (No, seriously, this is horrific--don't say I didn't warn you.)first posted in The Hunter's Grimoire, a horror fanbook collected by Sampsonknight
Comments: 10
Kudos: 65
Collections: yurtles





	Alligator Turtles

**Author's Note:**

> first posted in [The Hunter's Grimoire](https://sampsonknighttmnt.tumblr.com/post/188713200377/oh-no-the-book-has-been-found-by-you), a horror fanbook collected by Sampsonknight

The burst of adrenaline faded, leaving April floating on the edge of nightmares. She had been running through the sewers, chased by mechanical grinding and clanging. She'd splashed through foul smells and grown increasingly lost in the darkness, and the monsters...mousers...behind her were growing closer. And then something smashed into them, and her flashlight played over strange faces she couldn't understand. 

Slowly, laboriously, she dragged herself back toward consciousness. There were voices, the edges of consonants she could almost catch. Hands on her arms and legs, setting her down on something soft.

"Why did you bring her down here?"

The jumble of voices came to a halt. The last excited whisper trailed off and, in the brief empty silence, the air turned heavy.

"Now look—it ain't, uh, it ain't like we meant to start shit."

"It's just that those things were chasing her, and then she saw us and...well."

"She's not a threat, I swear, please, Leo, please, she's so tiny anyway—"

April blinked, wincing at the light over her eyes. As she came up on her elbows, shaking her head, she kept her gaze low and waited for everything to come into focus. Three large green blurs hovered around her, coming in and out of the light. 

"Oh fuck, she's awake."

"Are you okay, ma'am? We tried not to drop you but Mikey got nervous and I think I caught you before you hit the ground."

"Dude, not cool, way to diss me in front of our new friend—"

The blurs came into focus. Three large turtles stood around her, leaning close, staring at her and glancing at each other and over their shoulders. She started to feel light-headed, felt the pricklings of another fainting spell coming on...

...and then she saw what they were looking at. A fourth turtle, arms crossed, his face absolutely expressionless as he watched her.

She snapped wide awake. There was nothing friendly, nothing welcoming in his look. He was a snake watching a mouse.

Then one of them stepped between her and that look, and the rounder turtle filled the air with such awkwardly affable chatter that she was able to glance up at him and see the human eyes under the orange mask.

"Like, they didn't bite you, did they?" he asked. 

"The...mousers?" she managed to ask. "Uh, no. Are they...?"

"Oh, those little techno-terrors?" Orange smiled proudly, putting one foot up on the coffee table that bent on its duct taped legs. "We smashed them up good! Rescuing damsels in distress is totally our name."

"Your name is Michelangelo," said the red one, smacking the back of the turtle's head. 

"Please forgive him," the purple one sighed, and he rubbed the bridge of his beak. "We don't get many visitors down here and he seems to have forgotten that you were running for your life and that you are probably this close to fainting again at the sight of us."

She laughed. She couldn't help it. They were frightening, yes, but they could have been bantering on their way past her window to school. Kids—they were nothing but teenagers. She recognized the bravado and fragile self-confidence, and if they were crowding around her, then they had also crowded together between her and Dr. Stockman's murderous creations.

"Um...no, not really." She ran her hand through her hair. "I mean, yeah, I kind of disgraced myself earlier, but...thank you for saving me."

"Don't mention it," the red one grinned, clearly pleased.

She gathered her legs underneath herself, listening, talking, her scientific curiosity blending with her gratitude to slowly see their names and faces and personalities. Medieval weaponry. Mutation. Scrabbling out a life in the darkness with scavenged toys and furniture, stealing books and food, hiding, watching humanity through street drains. Their fascination with her own grad studies and the mundane banality of her own life seemed so quaint in return.

After laughing at one of Michelangelo's jokes, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that the fourth turtle had finally moved. Leaving the cramped subterranean room, the fourth turtle in blue had turned and quietly walked out through a dark doorway.

"Is...is he okay?" April asked softly.

Donatello and Michelangelo winced. Raphael shrugged, but he looked over his shoulder to make sure that the other one had left.

"That's—that's just Leonardo," he said, dragging the answer out. "S'just how he is."

"You don't have to deal with him," Donatello said. "He's not very talkative anyway."

"He's our big brother," Michelangelo added, glancing at the door.

"Oh, I get it," she said with a nod. "Really protective."

The hesitant yeah's and the way they had formed a half-moon around her, as if Leonardo was a threat like a mouser, she did not comment on.

~

They escorted her through the city and up to her apartment, refusing to leave until they saw that she was safe. And they returned the next night when she called, trapped on top of her building, watching as mousers chomped at the bricks beneath her. Less cocksure than when they were safely underground, they looked over their shoulders to make sure there were no humans watching from the windows, but the darkness sheltered them as they worked, leaving behind themselves a trail of scorched components and sharp steel.

A handful of mousers turned tail and fled back down through the stairwell, tromping through a bloody mess of someone who was unlucky enough to be in their way. She turned away from the sight, taking Donatello's offered shoulder.

"Dude means fucking business," Raphael muttered. "Shit."

"You can't stay here," Michelangelo said to her. "You gotta get somewhere safe."

April swallowed once. "There's no place. He can connect himself into the phone lines, the satellite feeds. If he really wants to, he can find me anywhere."

"Then you should come down with us," Donatello said before he realized he'd offered. Catching himself, he looked to see his brother's reaction, and April followed his look.

The quiet fourth turtle had walked to the edge of the building, leaning on one knee as he watched the last mouser vanish down under a sewer grating. The light of the city didn't reach him, but his silhouette was plain against the glow from the street.

"They're going underground," Leonardo said. "They can chew through brick and stone like nothing."

"So they can go anywhere?" Raphael asked, glancing at Donatello as he changed the subject from April returning with them. 

"Yes." Leonardo turned and came toward them, ignoring how they stood a little closer to April and how Donatello tightened his hold around her waist. "They're a danger to us now. This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't brought her back with you."

"No," Michelangelo said, drawing out the syllable as he gathered up his courage. "But then she'd be dead right now."

Leonardo narrowed his eyes. "This isn't our fight."

April stiffened. So he did have emotions. He'd said that as if leaving her to die was the smart choice. The others didn't seem surprised at all. 

"But we wouldn't know about Baxter Stockman at all," Donatello said. "Until those things ate through one of our walls and took us by surprise. We...we might be dead now if we hadn't saved her."

Leonardo's gaze shifted from his brother to April, silently regarding her. She didn't say anything, didn't break his look. In her peripheral vision, she saw his hand tightening on his sword, saw his arm tense. The small muscle in his jaw worked. So much of how they worked was human, but his eyes were absolutely reptilian.

She lowered her head. Judgment was being passed. And as friendly as the other three were...they wouldn't stop him. Might not be able to stop him. 

She didn't see him make his decision. She simply felt the hand on her waist relax, and they simultaneously breathed out in relief. She let go of her own breath.

"In any event," Leonardo said, turning again. "He knows we exist."

Unsaid went that Baxter had to die. She lifted her head. She wouldn't feel bad about that. 

"He would have abandoned the lab," she said, as an offering of good will that he'd left her alive. "But I don't know where—"

Leonardo was already walking away, pausing at the corner.

"Wait," Raphael said, putting his hand out. "You can't go alone—"

"I'll be back in time for dinner."

Raphael choked.

His brother vanished off the roof.

Left to their own devices, they gathered a few of April's things, especially gathering every last bit of food salvageable from the splintered fridge and cabinets. They escorted her down to a storm drain large enough to walk through. Slowly, with forced levity and lame jokes that fell flat, they tried to lighten the mood and make her forget that she was following them deeper and deeper into the underground, that her friends were mutated animals, that her home was destroyed. 

That Baxter Stockman was not the only threat to her now.

~

She slept on their couch. When she woke, she fumbled in her pocket for her cellphone, wincing as it came on and turning its brightness down to nil. She sighed. Only a fraction of power left. But probably Donatello would have a charger?

The small circle of light showed her the edge of the couch and a much-repaired coffee table, a stained rug, a video-game controller with duct tape down the middle. She followed its cord up to an old box tv and faded, scraped lamp pole. She stood and picked her way to the antique lamp, pulling the chain. Soft gold light flickered through the room.

But there wasn't much more than that—the walls were dry but cramped, only wide enough for the couch and the tv. What she'd imagined was a wall was an open passage with edges that betrayed how it had been smashed wide by brute force, with another three chambers branching off. Two of the rooms had wooden palettes leaned upright as make-shift doors, but they were dark and she didn't want to risk going where she wasn't welcome.

The third chamber had the sort of kitchen that she imagined a mad scientist might make if forced to scavenge on junk heaps. The refrigerator door didn't match the rest of it, and wires from the freezer escaped through the side to a power strip bolted to the wall. The oven was likewise mismatched, different components welded or roped together, and the light she'd seen was the four burners exposed to the air. An odd scent lay in the room, hardly surprising considering they were in a sewer. She was amazed she could smell anything at all. There was a table, barely visible with the suggestion of chairs around it, and a sink full of dishes. 

She set about earning a little of her keep, turning on the faucet, and to her surprise, the water ran clear. Mostly plates—in a house of teenagers, she wasn't surprised at the lack of silverware. But in the water, at the bottom of the pile, she found a bone a little larger than she'd expected. Not anything she recognized, and she wished her life was not so wild that she had to consider that. Maybe just a big rat? She tossed the bone in the trash can and took up the last plate. Maybe afterward she could sweep. There was a broom in the corner, next to a walking stick and one of Donatello's staffs.

"I guess this makes me Snow White," she murmured.

"Then am I a dwarf, or the huntsman?"

Her hands tightened on the plate. She didn't dare turn around. She finished washing that dish to buy herself a little time to compose herself, steadying her voice.

"You're as tall as I am," she said. "But...you haven't cut out my heart yet."

Her hand shook so that the plate rattled in the rack. When she didn't feel the pain of a knife in her back, she slowly turned around, leaning against the sink.

Leonardo stood against the far wall, in and out of the light, watching her.

'Yet' hung between them.

"You're a scientist," he said, accusing her of a grand crime against them personally.

"An engineer," she said. "I build machines. Well...I help other people build machines."

"Do they all try to kill you?" he asked, and his tone was so matter of fact that she didn't think he was joking. 

"Just Stockman," she said. She laughed once despite herself. "If he doesn't, his corporate donor, probably. And the stupid university is killing me with student loans, but whatever. Sure. Everyone's out to get a piece of me."

He didn't respond. She wondered if he even know what student loans were. What a university was. How much of the rest of the world did he understand? He'd caught her reference to Snow White, but living down here with only the most tenuous reach through a ratty tv and whatever they could glean by living underground, through books they'd read...

"Did you learn to read on your own?" she whispered, her awe growing. "You must have learned to fight by trial and error..."

His eyes narrowed. 

"We were taught."

She almost asked 'by who'. Almost. Her mouth had opened just as she registered that this was a trap. Too much scientific curiosity was dangerous. She didn't need to know everything. 

"You must be so scared of humans," she said.

He looked at her for a long time. She twisted the dishrag in her hands. Would he be offended if she turned and went back to the couch to pretend to sleep? The room was so dark, only the hint of the table, the edge of his swords catching the light enough to be a threat. She wanted to go back home and sleep in her own bed, and she bit her lip, blinking away a tear remembering that her bed was gone.

"They must have told you not to talk to me," he said after a moment.

She nodded once. "That you're quiet. And very protective."

A fleeting emotion passed over his face, so brief that she imagined the fond exasperation he'd exposed. He wasn't completely cold. To her, yes, but not to his brothers.

"I will kill to keep them safe," he said. His gaze went over her shoulder. "No matter who."

She turned. 

Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo all stood in the doorway, their gaze lowered as if they had been scolded. The youngest looked like he might start to cry, and there were tears in Raphael's eyes already. Her heart pounded. Was Leonardo going to kill her right now?

He watched her in faint amusement as she startled back, fumbling clumsily against the sink. 

"I..." She put her hand to her face, taking a deep breath. "I'm..."

"Very small," he said. "Very weak. But also very smart. Just like Stockman."

She felt a bit of hope despite herself. "Is he dead?"

"And if he isn't?" he demanded. "If I don't kill him like you want me to?"

There was a trap in this. She heard the promise of violence in his voice. But she couldn't parse out what the trigger was, and she couldn't think past her fear.

"Then...I'll hide. I have enough for a plane—no, they'd stop me at the airport. I...I could cash out at an atm, get on a bus. He might not follow me." She put both hands against her mouth. The others were watching him without moving, letting him do this. They wouldn't stop him if he...

"I thought you said you couldn't hide." He lowered his head slightly, now glaring at her. "I thought you said he could find you anywhere—"

"Then I'll just keep running," she whispered. "I'll keep...if you won't let me stay here, then I'll try where they don't have much internet. If I can get down south...if you won't kill him..."

Her mind didn't race so much as it careened, spinning out fragments of plans that contradicted and went nowhere. A bus to Mexico, hitchhiking to the midwest, a boat to...to...

"We aren't fighting anyone's personal vendettas," he said.

"It's not," she breathed, looking up at him and flinching at the heat of his glare. "I just want to live."

He watched her, studying her face, searching for the lie. 

Then he chuckled once, humorlessly. 

"Don't we all."

He reached out, ignoring her flinch, and he flipped on the light.

Baxter Stockman lay on the table. His head, at least, was on its side and staring distantly with slack jaw. The rest of his corpse lay in pieces neatly cut and trimmed and—

She couldn't move.

Sectioned. 

Reddened and blackened in spots. 

If Baxter's head had not been so prominently displayed, she didn't think she would have recognized the meat for what it was, so neatly carved on plates, one for every seat at the table. Leonardo had slaughtered and butchered a man as thoroughly as a cow or pig or goat, well practiced and at ease doing so. 

If he cut out her heart, he would eat it afterward. There was nothing human in his eyes. 

Leonardo pulled out a seat and sat down.

"Will you join us?"

The command was implicit. His brothers took their places at the table. They couldn't look at her. How many times had they done this already? Baxter Stockman had been evil, but...

Her heart hardened. 

Yes, he had been evil. And now Baxter was dead. And Leonardo had done her the kindness of killing him for her.

And...she was a scientist. A human. A threat to them. This was not a trap for her. It was a test.

"Thank you," she said. "I will."

She could let her fear and panic overwhelm her later. She was also a scientist and intently curious.

As if she was giving commands to her body, she felt herself functioning like a machine, mechanically sitting down at the last seat, accepting up the offered knife. Beside her, Michelangelo and Raphael were wiping away tears and taking quick breaths meant to steady them. And Donatello watched her with wide, curious eyes. This kind of meal was something they were used to—the only difference was their new guest.

Their eating revealed what their speaking did not, the unintended flashes of spiny teeth all along their mouths. Alligator turtles, she thought.


End file.
